Jerry turned onto a dirt driveway, dusty and dry. The sun cast long shadows off the surrounding pines. He bounced his way to a hand hewn log lodge with a wrap around porch.
Jerry peeled himself out of his car. Cicadas filled the air with crisp crescendos. Crows cackled. A gentle breeze wooed the pines. He took in a big breath and let out a sigh. He hadn’t realized how wound up his body had gotten during this whole abortion thing.
Once he got his standing legs back, he hobbled up some creaking stairs. The screen door slapped shut behind him. In the dark interior, a gray haired, thin woman greeted him with a prim yet warm smile.
“Welcome.”
“Yes.”
Her eyebrow arched. “You need to read through this package. Your cabin assignment is inside. You can leave your car in the parking lot here and walk to it. We will be joining together this evening at five before dinner.
“Oh, and by the way, there are to be no phone calls, no TV and no leaving the grounds. There’s a document there to sign regarding that. Please bring it with you to the meeting tonight.
“Any questions?”
“Nope.”
He ambled into the woods, past several small cabins, until he reached his own. He settled on the cot and eyed his surroundings: a plain interior, just a metal cot, a pine wood desk, a small window. The next cabin was some distance away, visible through the old growth pines. He looked down at his desk. Why did he have to sign this document agreeing to cut himself off from the outside world? Creepy. Had he just joined a cult?
Heading back to the main house, Jerry studied some of the other attendees. A portly silver haired gentleman with a pink Lacrosse golf shirt sat beside his cabin. He lifted his snifter in greeting. Further along, a lanky, young man with long dark hair passed by in devout silence. He avoided eye contact and did not respond to Jerry’s hello. Back at the main lodge, a cluster of professional looking women in their 40s conversed with meaningful nods.
“Excuse me. Where’s the bathroom?” he asked the gray haired greeter.
“Back the way you came.”
Sure enough he picked up the acrid smell and turned off the main trail down a rocky path to a medium sized cabin.
A lithe, strawberry blond woman approached from the opposite direction. They smiled to each other and entered their respective entrances. Turned out it was one big room inside. They locked their stall doors in unison.
As they washed their hands, side by side, Jerry said, “OK, that was different.”
The woman smiled without looking up.
“I’m a bit nervous about this place,” he continued.
She stood up. She shook her hands dry, passed by without a word, and let the screen door slam behind her.
“Good talk,” Jerry said.
The group’s first session began in the main lodge with everyone sitting in a circle on the floor. There were 20 students, the three founding matriarchs, Sheila Moon, Elizabeth Howes and Luella Sibbald, and the instructor, John Petroni. His suffering eyes set the tone. This was no summer camp.
Sheila, the poet, sat cross legged before a large basket of fruit. Gesturing at it, she explained, “We invite you this week to eat from the opposite side of the basket. You’re here for the nextten days, away from your family, away from your home, away from your routine. While you’re here, try something different, something you’ve thought about for a long time but were afraid to venture outside the familiar. If your nature is to eat an apple, try a pineapple.
“Much of what we will be doing here involve rituals. We believe rituals access the deeper aspects of our psyches. Our objective is to awaken parts of you that lay dormant, abandoned. Our desire is for you to leave here more fully aware of who you are, because as Joseph Campbell said, ‘The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.’”
The first ritual was to pass the talking stick around. The strawberry blond received the stick, turned to Jerry and said, as instructed, “Hello, my name is April and what is your name?” then handed him the stick. Jerry received it and said, “My name is Jerry,” with a smile, then he turned to his other side and did the same and so it continued around the circle.
“And now that we have all introduced ourselves, welcome to our new family. We will be living with each other for the nextten days,” said Sheila.
The next day began with a discussion of Jesus healing the palsied man, a story present in three of the four gospels, an indication of its authenticity. Jesus teaches in a crowded room. Friends, after cutting a hole in the roof, lower a palsied man near Jesus. For their faith, Jesus heals the man. He rises and walks.
That evening Jerry entered the lodge alit with candles. Community tables awaited with lumps of clay at each person’s place.
Sheila said, “Mold the clay into an expression of your palsied self, the part of you that is wounded. Allow your mind to quiet, let the clay speak to you, discover what it is telling you.”
Jerry stared at his clay and asked it to speak. Silence. All around him hands moved furiously. Panic arose. He was falling behind.
He tuned into the Baroque music. A plaintive flute filled the air, its clarion voice rising above the violins. A tear trickled down Jerry’s cheek. He thrust his thumb into the clay then violently squeezed the lump with both hands. The clay stretched into what appeared to be a tail.
He worked with increasing speed, adding spikes to the tail, like a dinosaur’s. Shackled to this prehistoric appendage, a small boy emerged with the spikes continuing up his twisted spine. The hunched over boy looked up with mouth agape, as if cowering to ward off a death blow.
Jerry gazed at his creation. His stomach clenched into knots.
The music stopped.
Sheila continued, “Now imagine the four friends who carried the palsied man to Jesus. What depth of compassion and faith these men had to carry him atop the roof then gently lower him down.
“You are now those four friends. Stand up and take your palsied self to be healed.”
As candles flickered, Pachelbel’s Canon in D played. The coincidence did not go unnoticed by Jerry, as that was the same music in the movie, Ordinary People. He shuffled around the room cradling his clay figure, swaying to the steady rhythm.
He imagined that the violins gathered around him, strings holding strings. A montage of memory passed before his inner eye: the boy in Ordinary People sobbing in the phone booth, rain pouring down, crying out for help, it was his fault, his fault; Raymond, his therapist back at Princeton, fingers laced, crunching ice, silent, yet caring; Adam, smoking a Tiparillo on the roof, telling him they would be friends forever; Barbara, oh Barbara, her face so bright, welcoming him.
Those violins, such a gentle sound, like a mother’s caressing hand.
Jerry’s brow furrowed, sobs erupted. He stifled them, yet he heard sobs from others too. He let it be. Snot dangled off his nose.
His clay figure; his contorted child. What happened; what happened? If it could only tell him.
He would stay by the boy’s side; he would care for him. He would present him to the Healer.
He crouched down and placed his palsied self on the makeshift alter just as the music ended.